AUTHOREADER PERFORMANCE D

ÇIGDEM Y MIROL

“Bookperformance,” “authoreader perform­ance” and “readerauthor performance” are the three states of an alternative literary expression that I propose to apply to the world of writing and reading, which has evolved its politics in a performative way since the internet and social media started dominating our daily field of expressions. I am writing the practical theory of this alternative literary expression under the main title of “bookperformance.” While “bookperformance” and “readerauthor performance” are products of intimate and private relations between the reader and the book or the author and the book, the “authoreader performance” is a product of a collective re-construction of the book by authoreaders, a term I propose to describe the creative members in these performances.

Through such improvised, collective, theatrical yet non-directed (either by an author or by a director) decisions, the readings give way and turn into actions; in this manner, the book becomes a performance not via unfolding images in the minds or in a virtual space, but in the space which conserves the enacted images, in front of the eyes, in sounds, in a real space. Each and every “authoreader performance” has its own dynamics that may depend on the place and on the potential contributions of every authoreader who participates in the collective act of reading and who temporarily becomes part of the synergy they create together.

I define this practical theory of “bookperformance” as “the best of all possible worlds” for the reader and the author, as it promotes freedom of imagination, reading on all levels, sharing the center of the performance which is a “bookperformance” (but not a novel) and surely creating temporary realities for it.

My first “bookperformance” is the first piece of Çigdem y Mirol QUARTET, called Yüzüm Kitap (Myface Book). With its structure and textuality it is a parody of Facebook and it enables the authoreaders to reconstruct and comment on it freely and individually as stated in the “bookperformance manifesto” that was first published in Myface Book, which will soon be published in English, and can be found on my website both in English and Turkish.